If you think jibing a short board was hard, wait to you try and learn to fast tack one!
Here's what you need to do:
1. save your pennies
2. pick a beautiful, tropical (warm) place with steady wind and flat water, and professional instruction. A skills clinic would be even better.
3. Go there for a week or more, so you can just relax, sail everyday and focus on what you're doing wrong.
4. practice practice practice....and have fun!_________________Kansas City

Congratulatiosn - you are ready to graduate to a short board! Get access to a smaller board and enough wind so you are fully planning! A smaller board will naturally want to carve and will give you a great responsive surfing sensation that will have you hooked.

Those boards are both freak'n enormous and hard to turn.
Tacks are great. But as mentioned, tacking a (small) short
board is a lot harder than jibing one. Learning to turn by tacking
either of those boards will have little transfer to smaller short boards
(though learning to plane through a jibe on them will transfer to
a smaller short board). I'm guessing your local conditions dictate
the use of those boards and are probably hovering around the
10-12MPH range.

I say tack yourself silly! Have fun! tacking big floaters is (by comparison)
really easy. But someday, if you want more than "intermediate"
performance, you're probably going to have to pay more than intermediate dues. ;*)

-Craig

p.s. I can tack my 80 ltr board, but have to be really lucky to tack
my 70 ltr, jibing either is a piece of cake in comparison.

beaglebuddy wrote:

I'm an intermediate at best, planing in the footstraps now. When I was underpowered jibes weren't a problem but now at higher speeds jibes are probably 90% unsuccessful and the mast always falls on the wrong side so it's exhausting continuously swimming the rig around to waterstart.
I can tack with a high completion rate going one direction so I'm considering just sticking with the tack for now and deal with the carve jibe later. I'll get more sailing than flailing in and at least I'll stay upwind. Maybe I can learn a planing tack.
How does this strategy sound?
I'm 100KG and my boards are an Exocet windsup and a 2002 SB free formula 198L, two boards that probably don't jibe well, although when the wind/sail is just right I can plane and reliably make a stomp jibe on the windsup.

I agree that tacking is underrated. But on the other hand it is just one of the many skills you want to learn. I wouldn't replace jibing with tacking but mix it up. A proper tack can be done on sinking boards (my 72 liter challenges me but I'm solid on my 86 liter). I've also come real close to planning out of a tack but that is fairly difficult.

When to tack?
1. Sailing on a flood tide. Especially if your tack is more reliable than your jibe. Or when you are really trying to get upwind.

2. Coming in to jibe and it is crowded downwind with other people but upwind is clear.

3. Any time you want to cause it is cool But keep in mind it is usually not expected so make sure you don't have somebody jibing directly upwind of you

Some tips on jibing. Get out on a big board and a small sail in non-planing winds. Work on pivot jibes. Practice on turning the board quickly with an aggressive sail flip. Also throw in some 3-step tack practice. In 30 minutes if you work at it you will get tons of jibes in. Much more than in regular sailing.

Since the jibe is normally broken down into 3 parts this gets you lots of practice with the third part flipping the sail (and changing stance). Once this gets easier practice with smaller boards and bigger sails in non-planning conditions. It is amazing how many blown jibes you can save with a good sail flip. If you get this down you have learned 1/3 of the jibe

Congratulations. You have graduated to shortboard windsurfing! Get yourself on some smaller boards in good planning conditions and you will get a much better feeling for carving turns more like a surboard.

Once again: don't swim your gear around. Just grab it and swing your legs around in a huge horizontal circle (watch the fin!). 3-5 circles and your sail will be where you want it, then the board is easily re-oriented. Swimming is for catching runaway boards, getting back to shore if the wind quits, or exercise.

in a traditional jibe, your feet are almost side-by-side, and too far back to keep the board in trim, so you have to compensate by applying mast base pressure. To do that, you have to lean forward, towards the front of the board, at the same time the sail is trying to pull you forward, which is why so many boards have the nose snapped off by the boom. That is one wobbly tripod! I don't have to apply mast base pressure, I'm using my front foot up near the mast, which also gives me much better leverage over the sail’s pull. As a matter of fact I have a maneuver I invented called the “Dip & Toss”, which is a lay-down jibe followed by a no-hands sail flip. Traditional jibers will never do this, because as soon as you stop applying mast base pressure, your board stalls, because your feet are too far back.

On a traditional jibe in rough water, the heel of your front foot is bobbing around in the air with only your toes touching while you try to control it from the knee & hip

I've been "Dippin' and tossin" for about 20 years now with my front foot in the strap and my heel firmly planted, with no need to step forward, raise my forward heel, or consciously press down on the rig. The trick is high speed and a quick, explosive carve, almost like bouncing off a pool table rail; the board doesn't have time to slow down and start porpoising. The drawback is timing; there's little room/time for correcting errors.

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou can attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum